Uriah Hall Talks Path To The Ultimate Fighter
Posted on 23 Jan 2013
by MMAScoops.com Staff

Uriah Hall (7-2 MMA, 0-0 UFC) recently spoke about his path to the Ultimate Fighter. Here are the highlights…

On Issues From Moving From Jamaica to the US: "Kids were picking on me and calling me names," Hall admitted. "I had never done that before, so the whole courage of standing up for yourself, I didn't know what that was. I guess a lost a lot of confidence during that time. I remember even seeing a psychiatrist because my mom made me do it."

On Getting Into the Martial Arts: "Right next door was a martial arts school," Hall said. "My mom was like, 'You want to try it?' I was like, 'Yeah.' At 16, I think I just fell in love, and from then on it became an everyday thing. At one point, I couldn't wait to get out of school because I loved martial arts so much. It really changed my life."

On Watching a Ton of Van Damme Movies: "I used to watch martial arts on TV all the time," Hall said. "I didn't know what the hell they were saying, but I would learn visually. I would watch something and then do it. To tell you the truth, when I started martial arts, I was watching a lot of Van Damme movies, and I was playing a lot of video games, especially 'Tekken.' I would learn from that. I would play it, and I would just practice and do it. So when I started, they were like, 'Have you trained before?' I just said, 'Nope.' I couldn't tell them, 'Hey, man, I learned from video games.' So it was really cool, and that's how I picked up things."

On His Journey: "It's a never-ending journey. Most people don't understand that. They think, 'Oh, just punch and kick.' It's a journey. It's how you take that journey and what you can gain from it."